This invention relates to the field of measuring and locating devices for use in auto body repair work to indicate the correct location to which a damaged part of the vehicle has to be moved to get back to its original correct position. In particular it relates to a measuring and locating device for use above the engine compartment in the front of the vehicle to more easily and more accurately determine the correct location for the right and left strut towers which hold the upper mounting plates for the vehicle's shock absorbers and for the right and left radiator core supports, using the rearward right and left cowl apertures as the control points or original points of reference.
Various arrangements of intersecting bars and rods assembled into a frame or jig are known and used for aligning parts of machines which have gotten out of alignment, including for use in making the correct wheel alignment of vehicles wherein a vertical bar is positioned adjacent each wheel to be aligned as a point of reference and short horizontal measuring rods are then extended from the vertical reference bar to the vehicle wheel at the top, bottom, forward and rearward portions whereupon it can be determined if the wheel is in the correct position at each point, and if not the horizontal measuring rods show how far each portion has to be moved to be brought back into correct alignment.
Intersecting bars and rods assembled into a jig or frame that is appropriate for underbody repair work are also known, such as for clamping to the underbody pinch weld on each side of an auto and suspending a lateral measuring bar across the underside of the vehicle whereby the correct position of a bent portion of the underbody can be determined to tell how far it will have to be moved to get it back into its correct position.
However, as far as the inventor knows, a frame or jig for conveniently locating the correct positions for the left and right strut towers, the left and right radiator core supports, as well as the left and right cowl apertures, all at one time by laying above the open engine compartment has not been known or previously used. Prior art methods for determining correct positions for these parts of the vehicle body include use of an individual yardstick or other measuring device to measure each item separately from a known reference point, using a specification reference book which shows the correct distances between the respective parts of the various vehicles to be worked on.
An advantage of the present invention, and an improvement over the prior art method of determining the correct locations of the strut towers, radiator core supports and cowl mounting apertures is that the correct location of all of these parts can be determined together by the same frame or jig assembly, including their correct positions relative to each other, and the frame or jig can be left in place to continually indicate the correct positions for all of such parts while each one is being pulled, pushed, bent or otherwise moved back to its correct position. This avoids the possibility that one part which had previously been moved to its correct position might be moved partially out of such correct position when force is being applied to move another part into correct position.